Not all rushing yards are equal
Traditional stats miss the “how” behind yards gained
Previous research has explored athletes reaching theoretical max capacity 1
Can we “measure” effort using tracking data?
Multiple ways of evaluating effort
Game, play, player, tracking data from Weeks 1-9 1
Running plays where a running back (RB) is the ball carrier
Trimmed each play to frames between handoff and end of play
Biased toward backups because of lower sample size.. or are they just working harder after all? Are starters fatigued or pacing themselves?
Unrealistic theoretical max speeds
Define research question and scope ✅
Data cleaning and preprocessing, EDA ✅
Select effort metric(s)
Evaluate effort metric(s) by correlating it to effort-related outcomes
Use chosen metric(s) to answer questions related to effort (residual effort, tackle outcome probabilities, minimum required effort per play, etc)